


If I Loved You Less

by anarchycox



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Banter, Character Study, Clueless people, Crack, Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Grooming, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiple Pov, Murder, Pining, Sex, Slow Burn, Snark, bad aiden, dub con, happy ever after, not between main characters, over protective characters, slight Emma au, the mutagens mess growth cycles up, which is the equivalent of 18 for humans, witchers age oddly, witchers don't walk the path until around fifty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchycox/pseuds/anarchycox
Summary: The mutagens, among everything else they do to the witchers, mess with the aging process. Living hundreds of years means other things get altered as well. While you pass the trials early, you then spend a few decades training because emotionally and intellectually a fifty year old witcher is the equivalent to an 18 year old human. Geralt was the wolf earliest on the path at the tender age of forty six.Kaer Morhen was sacked when Lambert was twenty four, and the other three remaining try to make plans to keep him safe until he is older, twenty four means he is pretty much a baby. But Lambert is not having this, if he is the last wolf left, he is going to be a witcher dammit. He sneaks out and sets off on the path and learns just how dangerous the world really is.He will discover the world is better and worse than he could ever imagine and eventually realize that true love is found in truly unexpected places.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Lambert
Comments: 34
Kudos: 68





	If I Loved You Less

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I am really excited by this story and hope that you will enjoy it. I had debated tagging this story as underage, just because to witchers, sorcerers, elves, monsters, anyone with connection to magic or the spheres it is clear that Lambert is underage, even though to humans he looks very grown up. Because making people almost ageless has to mess up something. I want to be clear that nothing happens between Geralt and Lambert until after Lambert is over 50 or the equivalent of over 18. 
> 
> There is not nearly enough long fic for geralt/lambert out there and I aim to rectify that.
> 
> The relationship between Geralt and Lambert is definitely inspired by the relationship between Emma and Mr. Knightley.

Geralt was in the kitchen with Eskel and they passed a bottle of whisky back and forth. Vesemir was checking on Lambert again, a compulsion of the last teacher to check on his last charge. “What are we going to do with the baby?” he asked. It was a question they had been asking since they burned the last of the bodies. They had tried to insist that Lambert not help with that, he was far too young to have to cope with that, but he insisted and Vesemir said it might give him peace to help.

The boy’s nightmares were only every three nights now.

“Vesemir and he will stay here, continue his lessons,” Eskel said after a moment. He took a few hits from the whisky. “It’s logical.”

Geralt nodded, “Vesemir wants back on the path. Staying here with only one pup? It will haunt him.”

“He has to, Geralt. Lambert is only 24, you know we can’t let a child like that out into the world. It will eat him alive.”

“I know,” Geralt agreed. He finished the bottle. “But what about Vesemir?”

Eskel shook his head, and they quieted as they heard the old wolf’s footsteps. 

He sat heavily next to them. “He had another bad dream. Got him settled down.” Vesemir took the other bottle on the table, and drained it almost empty. Geralt was impressed. “This is far too much for him, he had only completed the trials. He should be celebrating, being praised by everyone and he has nothing.”

“He has us?” Geralt offered. It was not much to offer though. He took the bottle and finished that one as well. “Fuck, all he has is us.” He looked at Vesemir, “We’re only 60, Vesemir, we can’t look after a baby, fuck we barely take care of ourselves.” He could feel himself beginning to panic. “Oh, Melitele, all there is is us.” He went to the corner and threw up all the alcohol and could feel his heart racing as if it were human again. He felt a soothing hand on his back. “Vesemir, make it better?” he asked as if he was still a pup.

“I cannot,” Vesemir answered and nudged him back to the table. Water was set to boil and a bit later a cup of tea was thrust into his hands. “There is nothing that can make this better, we just learn how to survive. It is a thing we are good at it seems.”

“Why us?” Eskel began to roll a coin over his fingers a nervous tick of his. “There were better than us who died, that shouldn’t have. Stronger, smarter. We’re barely passed being pups, and you were…well…” Eskel spun the coin on the table.

“There were only a handful older than me. You two are young, I am old, we should have been cut down,” Vesemir finished. “And Lambert barely passed the trials. Only in his group, and it was by the skin of his teeth. We were all the least likely to survive, and hear we stand.” He drank some more. “Fuck if I know, pups. It is what destiny decreed, and we may understand its meaning in time.”

“Fuck destiny,” Geralt growled and stalked off. He couldn’t. It could not be destiny that dozens died and they lived. That was luck or chance, nothing more. And it was bullshit that they had to carry this burden. He headed towards his favourite tower, there was a room he went to there when he needed space and stopped at its base. It had taken too much damage and there was no way up to his sanctuary. Geralt just started screaming. He sank to his knees and screamed until no more sound came out of his throat. He stared at the tower and all the rubble at the base. He stood and began to move the stone into a more sensible pile.

Geralt smiled a bit as he remembered their one trainer who made them move boulders to develop their muscles and endurance. He ignored the tears that fell as he thought of that man and all the others they had lost. He was mindlessly moving about the mess, it made no sense really, but he couldn’t stop. Geralt reached a piece that was too big to move by himself, he knew that, but he tried anyways, straining muscles. Hurting himself because he was already hurting so much on the inside, he wanted the outside to match. 

Then the stone lifted. He stared at Lambert, and they moved the piece over and out of the way. “You should be asleep.”

“Some dick was screaming and crying like a bitch, woke me up,” Lambert replied. He went and began to move more of the rock.

“You sleep clear at the other side of the Kaer Morhen from here,” Geralt pointed out. He needed a moment. He sat and watched Lambert. Fuck, he was so fucking young. And he was the last. It was awful, but Geralt wished almost anyone else had been the youngest left. What he knew of the pup, Lambert wouldn’t cope well. Not that he knew him much with him only joining the main hall in the past fortnight. Geralt didn’t want to call him weak, because clearly he wasn’t, but fuck Geralt could not remember being that young.

“You were loud,” Lambert replied, and just kept moving the stone.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Because. Nothing else was working, maybe this will? You were hoping it would help.”

“Sit with me,” Geralt gestured to the grass beside himself. “It won’t help, just make you sore.”

“You move stone, to know that as a witcher you can move mountains,” Lambert growled. It was a credible imitation of their old strength trainer. But he came and sat. “He said even more stupid shit than Vesemir does about your sword being your heart.” There was a pebble and Lambert threw it against the tower. “I saw him die. Wasn’t heroic or noble, it was just dead.”

Geralt nodded. He could explain to Lambert that they had all held against the forces that came, but it was all too much. They had tried, it hadn’t been enough but they had tried. In a couple hundred years it would be the stuff of legend - if it had been a siege at a royal keep. They were witchers though, and no one would ever sing their tale. Lambert started to cry next to him, and Geralt almost snapped at him to grow up. But that was the point, he was only twenty four, he wasn’t grown up. And it would be bullshit since Geralt had been crying earlier. Geralt scooted closer and raised his arm.

“If that goes around me, I will fucking gnaw it off,” Lambert growled through his sobs. 

“With those baby fangs?” Geralt snorted at that. “They even come all the way in.”

“Oh please, you are only sixty, like yours are all the way in.” Lambert shoved him a bit. He was then quiet other than the tears for a few minutes. Geralt didn’t put an arm around the pup but did put their shoulders against each other, giving the bit of comfort that Lambert would allow. “They will grow a bit right?” Lambert asked.

Geralt smiled, “They will,” he promised. He ran his tongue over his fangs, and yes he was a bit annoyed sometimes that his weren’t as big as Eskel’s. There was an old witcher joke about the bigger the fangs, the bigger the cock. “Maybe.” Lambert hit him, and he hit the pup back.

Lambert wrapped his arms around his knees. “Geralt?”

“Hmm?” Dawn was almost there, the sky a bit lighter. He was a bit surprised that the world just kept moving, after all that pain. But it did. It always would.

“What is the path really like? Not what the trainers tell us, the truth?”

“It is so fucking tiring,” Geralt said after a moment. “The expectation that you can save people? People who often treat you like shit?” He stared off into the distance. “They ask so damn much, and we deliver. Until we don’t, until we can’t.”

“Is any of it good?”

Geralt thought about it. “Yes, there is good. Music. There is music out there that reminds you, yes we feel things, no matter what some trainers said. Sweets, there are more sweet foods. And sometimes people are nice.” The sky was warming. “Oceans, you can stare out and not see other land. Cities where you can almost lose yourself. Woods that are different trees and scents than here.”

“Aren’t cities awfully loud?”

“They are, too much so, but also the loud drowns out the bad thoughts sometimes.” Geralt looked at him. “There is a lot that is shit, but there is good. You’ll find out in a decade or so.” There was no way they’d be able to keep Lambert from venturing into the world until the usual age of 47-50 depending on the witcher. “You’ll stay here, training with Vesemir until you are thirty seven or so, be the youngest wolf who ever ventured on the path.” It was the only logical course of action. “But right now, you need more sleep.”

“I’m not the baby that you keep calling me. Can’t witness a fucking massacre, and still be a baby,” Lambert stood up. “Bet my fangs are gonna be bigger than yours.” He strode off and Geralt just shook his head at the strop. They were in for a time of it for the next ten or fifteen years.

Geralt made his way to his room and collapsed. Hours later he was woken by Vesemir’s shouts. He hurried to the hall and saw Vesemir holding parchment. “What?” he took the piece of paper.

“See you in the winter,” he read. There was nothing else. He couldn’t process it for a moment, because it wasn’t Eskel’s writing and who else would…”No,” Geralt ran through the whole of Kaer Morhen and he was gone. 

In the great hall, Vesemir was crying, and it shattered Geralt. “He is so young, he won’t survive,” Vesemir put his head in his hands. “Three wolves will be left.”

“We can catch him,” Geralt said.

Eskel shook his head. “He covered his tracks well, made it past the low bridge, must have been running.” Eskel’s hand was on his neck. “He’s gone, Geralt.”

Geralt nodded, and sat heavily down next to Vesemir. “His fangs are barely in,” he whispered. And started mourning all over again. Because Vesemir was right, no twenty four year old would survive the path alone.

*

Lambert’s hands were not shaking as he pulled the notice off the board. It was because it was raining a bit. Not nerves. He read the post and it sounded like a bog hag, maybe some drowners. He could do that. You were trained on the drowners in the lake, he had taken his first couple down when he was nineteen. It was fine. He just had to go into the tavern and negotiate a contract. Only he hadn’t started those lessons yet and wasn’t sure what to do. He took the notice and went into the tavern. It seemed like everyone was turning and staring at him. And after a glance at the two swords some faces were relieved and some were disgusted. He tried to ignore all the stares and went to the bar. He lay the paper down. “See you need a witcher.”

“We do,” the woman said. She poured out a mug of ale and handed it to him. “On the house. Crops haven’t come in as well as we hoped, not a lot of spare money,” she said. He knew she was lying a bit, could smell it on her. “We can pay twenty crowns, but also free room, food, and we can send you along your way with a pack full of food, and a few extra supplies.”

It didn’t seem like a bad deal to him, but he was pretty sure if he didn’t challenge a bit he would look weak. “Twenty five crowns,” he said trying to sound a bit like Vesemir. There was a flash in her eyes and she smelled smug. He could have, should have pushed for more.

“Of course,” she agreed.

“Could I have some stew or such?”

“My pleasure. Go have a seat, my girl will bring it out to you.”

Lambert looked around the tavern and found a corner table that had good sight lines, that lesson drilled into him. He ate and watched people watch him. A man came over and showed him on a rough drawn map where the problems were. There was a blacksmith in town also if his weapons needed sharpening. Lambert gave his thanks and stared at the little map. That was for his first contract on the path. He licked his lips and stood up. The tavern was quiet as he left. He went to the blacksmith and had the edges sharpened and the man had a good runestone that he traded a dagger for, and he affixed it carefully, like Vesemir had taught them. He took a few deep breaths and followed the map towards in the inlets that had the problems. 

He held his sword ready and downed an adrenaline potion, because he wasn’t scared, but because -

Fuck, he was so scared.

He could make out a few drowners swimming about and all his lessons left his mind. Especially when it wasn’t one or two drowners, seven came out of the water. He backed away a bit and reached for his crossbow. Only to realize when he had snuck away from Kaer Morhen he hadn’t grabbed one. But his had closed around a bomb. They were taught bombs were a last resort, that a witcher who relied on explosives was weak minded and a coward. That they were only for destroying nests because you lost too many valuable alchemical ingredients when you blew monsters up.

He wasn’t a coward.

He just didn’t want to die.

Lambert threw the bomb and it took care of four of the drowners and stunned the others. Then Lambert ran forward with his sword. It was hard, fuck it was so much harder than he expected, especially when the bog hag just sort of appeared and threw mud, blinding him. He spun with his sword, relying on his ears and nose like how Vesemir had taught them. Something grabbed at him, and pulled him down, but he rolled and snapped back up. Lambert didn’t focus, didn’t remember his forms, he just swung wildly, and luckily his muscles understood and were working him through the fight. And when the bog hag slammed into him, he was so wet and muddy no one would know he pissed himself in fear. 

Lambert formed his fingers and cast igni dead against her eyes and she screamed and fell back. He picked up the silver sword that he dropped. Vesemir would put him to double chores for having dropped it, and he sat on the hag and drove it through her heart. He watched her die and threw up on her face. He slid off her and flopped on the ground. 

He began to laugh and to cry, surrounded by the dead corpses some of which were mostly viscera with the whole exploding them thing. But he was alive. “Ha!” he shouted. “Twenty four, take that, Geralt!” There was no answer of course. “Wait until my thirties, like fuck,” he wiped his tears away, because it was stupid to be crying. He had done it, there was no need to cry. Lambert slowly sat up and stared at the carnage. He knew there were stuff he should collect from the monsters, for potions, to sell to herbalists. And he knew he knew that information, but it was all locked away in his head, the relief to being alive blocking it out. So he started to leave when he saw a couple of chests. He cast aard and they broke apart and he found some coin, and gauntlets, a couple bottles of alcohol. Not anything very exciting, but more things than he had before. 

Lambert stumbled his way back to the tavern. “All done,” he said as he leaned on the bar.

“Proof, don’t witchers usually bring proof?” she asked.

“Yes, yes they do. Excuse me.” Lambert ran back to the location and the wind had made the water choppier and a lot of the corpses floated away, but he grabbed the bog hag’s head and a drowner arm. He returned to the tavern. “Water cleared out the rest, but proof.” He put them down on the bar and the woman flinched. He picked them up and tried to run the bar clean with his sleeve, but it was filthy with mud and muck and just made it worse. “Would that room, perhaps come with a bath?”

“It can at that. Go throw those in the pig pen, they’ll eat anything.” She put a key on the bar. “Second room on the right. Small tub in there, hot water will be brought up.”

“My thanks,” Lambert replied. He disposed of the parts like she said and the room was not bad, really, couldn’t smell any mice. The tub was small but he’d at least get clean. A couple men brought up water and half the buckets were steaming and then a woman brought up a couple with more tepid water. He gave them a nod and the men left and the woman lingered.

“You saved us,” she said.

“I did what any witcher would do, it is our duty,” he said solemnly. “And I did it. Perfectly. Not any mistakes and clearly I wasn’t afraid. Because I am old enough to walk the path. Clearly, because here I am walking it, and killing monsters. To protect your town.” Lambert bit his tongue to stop from babbling, his body ready to crash from its first hunt.

“A handsome witcher at that,” she said. She was lingering and his water was getting cooler, that was annoying. “Would you perhaps want help? I’m told I am a fair hand at scrubbing hard to reach places.”

He looked at her in confusion, shit did she realize how young he was? Fuck, if humans realized he was only twenty four, they’d be horrified. “No, thank you, as a fully mature witcher, I do manage on my own just fine.”

“I just thought you could use some thanks for your work for our village.”

“I will be paid, what other thanks is there?” He looked at the tub. “It is getting cold, so, my thanks again for bringing the water.” She was just giving him a weird smile and standing there so he went over and poked her with a finger tip so that she stepped back and then he closed the door. He stripped out of the clothes and used a cloth to wipe down a bit before he stepped into the water. It was like a marionette having its strings cut. He began to shake and more tears fell as the weight of his first hunt properly sunk in. He replayed it again and again in his mind, and knew how close he had come to dying. Lambert had been so scared. And he couldn’t be. He realized now why they were trained to bury their emotions, why the elders insisted even after you passed your trials you weren’t ready for the world for another twenty five or so years. He bit at his thumb nail until it bled a bit. He now knew why Geralt had said he needed another decade at home.

He wasn’t ready for this.

But here he was, and here he would keep on.

Lambert stood from the bath and dried off. He put on a clean pair of trousers and used the water to clean his leathers and clothes. There was a knock and the tavern keeper had a heaping tray of food and another mug of that ale he hadn’t really drunken the first time. He thanked her for the tray and she promised he’d be paid in the morning and leave with a nice extra bag of goods. The food was filling and fuck he was tired. He nodded a couple times as he ate. He saw to his needs and then flopped on the bed and dragged his pack over. There in the bottom was a scrap of fabric. A patch he had cut away from his quilt from back home. He put the square under his cheek, the smell of home almost gone.

Lambert curled into a ball and wished he was with another wolf, even the annoying Geralt telling him he had done good would be nice right about now.

But there was no one.

Because he was a witcher now, and they always walked alone.


End file.
